புதன், டிசம்பர் 24, 2008

Chandrayaan II design complete

NEW DELHI: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday said that the design for Chandrayaan II has been completed and it will be

launched by 2012. "The designs for Chandrayaan II have been completed and we hope to launch it by 2012," ISRO chairperson G Madhavan Nair told reporters here on the sidelines of a function organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to felicitate the Chandrayaan I team.

The Chandrayaan II project is slated to land a small rover on the moon's surface and collect and analyse samples, he said.

The ISRO has made another achievement recently, when a commercial satellite built by the organisation for the European satellite operator, Eutelsat, was successfully launched from French Guiana in South America.

Nair noted that the ISRO was earning about Rs 10 billion (Rs 1,000 crore) annually from its commercial wing. This is expected to grow at 20 percent per year, he added.